Directions

In this chapter we discussed why well-designed data graphics are important and we described a taxonomy for understanding their composition.

The objective of this assignment is for you to understand what characteristics you can use to develop a great data graphic.

Each question is worth 5 points.

To submit this homework you will create the document in Rstudio, using the knitr package (button included in Rstudio) and then submit the document to your Rpubs account. Once uploaded you will submit the link to that document on Canvas. Please make sure that this link is hyper linked and that I can see the visualization and the code required to create it.

Question #1

](http://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S1043276005002602-gr2.jpg)

  1. Identify the visual cues, coordinate system, and scale(s)

Colors- Green for Menarche and Pink for Psychosocial maturation. Length- Period/ Duration Direction Scale:time Coordinate system: Cartesian system

  1. How many variables are depicted in the graph? Explicitly link each variable to a visual cue that you listed above.

20,000 years ago: different length menarche x psychosocial maturation 2,000 years ago: different position x 20,000-years-ago variable 200 years ago: direction going up Present:diffetent colors for menarche (green) x psychosocial maturation (pink)

  1. Critique this data graphic using the taxonomy described in the lecture.

The graph manages to express clear information about the numbers and the differences between 20k years ago to 200 years ago , where it shows that both menarche and psychosocial maturation have been increasing, and the gap between menarche and psychosocial maturation increases with changes related to social complexity and nutritional overload. The colored bars and labels on the graph are useful, however some lengths of the bar are not very clear so it could be a point for improvement.

Question #2

Answer the following questions for this graphic World’s top 10 best selling cigarette brands 2004-2007

  1. Identify the visual cues, coordinate system, and scale(s)

1 Visual cues: Color + length 2 Coordinate system: Cartesian Coordinate system 3 Scales: Numeric/ Linear

  1. How many variables are depicted in the graph? Explicitly link each variable to a visual cue that you listed above.

Total of 10 variables:

Camel: color & length Cleopatra: color & length Derby: color & length Kent: color & length L&M: color & length Marlboro: color & length Mild Seven: color & length Pall Mall: color & length Wills Gold flake: color & length Winston: color & length

  1. Critique this data graphic using the taxonomy described in the lecture.

Visual cues Color and length are used for data graphics. There’s a nice variation in the color choices, and none stand out more than the others. As the lengths of the bars show the sales (in billion), and the longest lengths show the highest sales, we can see that between 2004-2007, Marlboro was the cigarette’s best seller. The length also shows the sales (in billions) of the individual brands. Context was provided by labels and titles.

Question #3

Find two data graphics published in a newspaper on on the internet in the last two years.

  1. Identify a graphical display that you find compelling. What aspects of the display work well, and how do these relate to the principles that we have just gone over in lecture. Include a screenshot of the display along with your solution (Hint:use the following in a code chunk: knitr::include_graphics(“your_graphic”).

setwd(“/Users/paulasperes/Documents/DATA VISUALIZATION”) knitr::include_graphics(“PANDEMIC.JPEG”) [1] “PANDEMIC.JPEG” attr(,“class”) [1] “knit_image_paths” “knit_asis”

In my opinion, the graphics that tell the stories of the pandemic are extremely compelling. He clearly manages to create a timeline where we can easily situate ourselves and understand what happened in each decade. By using different colors and different sizes for each disease, it is easy to understand the weight of each of them and the relationship between the pandemic x number of deaths and their duration. The chart brings a lot of different information, but without making the information polluted or difficult to read.

setwd("/Users/paulasperes/Documents/DATA VISUALIZATION/")
knitr::include_graphics("PANDEMIC.png")

  1. Identify a graphical display that you find less compelling. What aspects of the display don’t work well? Are there ways that the display might be improved? Include a screenshot of the display along with your solution (Hint:use the following in a code chunk: knitr::include_graphics(“your_graphic”).

[1] “/Users/paulasperes/Documents/DATA VISUALIZATION/CLICK.JPEG”

setwd("/Users/paulasperes/Documents/DATA VISUALIZATION")
knitr::include_graphics("CLICK.png")

I believe this is not a compelling chart, considering the large number of different categories for a horizontal bar chart. Also, because there are no clear labels and the scale is not well defined, it is difficult to understand what exactly the gap is between one category and another and their weight within the study.

Question #4

Briefly (one paragraph) critique the designer’s choices. Would you have made different choices? Why or why not? Note: Link contains a collection of many data graphics, and I don’t expect (or want) you to write a full report on each individual graphic. But each collection shares some common stylistic elements. You should comment on a few things that you notice about the design of the collection.

What is a Data Scientist

Answer:

The author uses an interesting color choice, which makes the information visually pleasing and standardized, and he uses different graphics for each information. Despite containing a lot of important and relevant information, considering that it contains a lot of text and does not specify which one exactly answers each of the questions, I believe it would be interesting to highlight and give more weight to the main information that the author wants to give more attention to and perhaps reduce the lenght of some texts, making it easier for readers to read.

Question #5

Briefly (one paragraph) critique the designer’s choices. Would you have made different choices? Why or why not? Note: Link contains a collection of many data graphics, and I don’t expect (or want) you to write a full report on each individual graphic. But each collection shares some common stylistic elements. You should comment on a few things that you notice about the design of the collection.

Charts that explain food in America

Answer:

This is a collection of different graphics and maps and for most of them the author uses heatmaps by breaking down the information in states and countries level. The difference color palette, scales and layers are very useful to highlight and differentiate the information from one graphic to another. But even though some of the graphics could be clearer. For example, #14, which shows the information about the meat consumption, it doesn´t show a clear scale for the gradients and as it has many different colors it very hard to understand where is exactly the highest and the lowest meat consumption.